PICKETT FENCE Look at life Walking down the fence Dragging my stick From one to the other Click click click Something about it The movement sound Feeling in my hand Cracks on the sidewalk Moving by Don’t step on one Or you’ll A few Phlox Reach through Smiling and playful …

HORSE SENSE Something you learn From New England Grandmothers Nowhere else Amid the chaos of youth Tearing at me from all sides Was a voice Not the first Nor the loudest Or most demanding When all had settled A piece of wisdom Here and there Just enough to expose The wrongs Reinforce the rights A reservoir fills slowly Then remains a body at rest A scale in a different form There is a balance In everything if you know

OUT IN SPACE My mind drifts Out there sometimes Just to look around At all the wonderous Stars planets galaxies quasars pulsars supernovae I let my imagination expand Into an infinity of possibilities There are those who know The why’s and wherefore’s Of all this but I’m content To float…

ILLUSIONS How the world looks Through beliefs From others More interested In themselves And what they have Than the young Impressionable me The aging me looking For a spot to fit into The old me Seeking a personal path Around the obstacles Of indifference Illusions are invisible Therein lies their power Crush a budding flower Of the wrong color The dandelion free lawn Of intent and control What will they think

THOUGHTS OF SPRING Drips of ice melt Slip from the roof Glint in streaks as they pass Between the sun and me Rain from a one dimensional World in an imaginary universe A thin layer of snow Wet and slushy on the ground Capped with an almost snow crust Masks…

FEBRUARY MOON She passed by last month Almost unseen not felt Like the other times No secret messages for me No emotions stirred Quietly I slept unawares Yet secure in her presence She swept across the heavens Pushing clusters of puffy Night clouds off to the horizon The sky clear…

TUXEDO BIRDS Grey tops light underbelly Just the right colors Canadians or at least Summer residents up there They’d probably get overheated Any further south than here A joy when they arrive Tight knit flocks Copying everything Everyone else does Skittering around in the seeds I scatter after coffee Looking…

THESE DAYS Same as the others but not They move faster Into the day memory place The present a fleeting rush Away from the mirror of time Cacophony of news The acrid stink of war Pestilence even at our doors No wonder we pull the drapes And retreat accomplices In…

BLOSSOM She lived under The screened in porch In front of the cottage Warm evenings we would Sit by candlelight Listen to the sounds Of the night Crickets and that nice bug I called him with the Long constant trill Sometimes guitar sounds Vibrating out into the night From this…